virtualbox.org

Hi,

I have a Virtual box ( version 3.2.6 r63112 ) and i have a VM and it had some 6-7 snapshots , and i wanted to clone this vm and read on one a blog ( http://geekozoid.blogspot.com/2009/05/h ... chine.html) that first i need to combine all these snapshots to parent by selecting option "Delete Snapshot" , i did that task and now my vm doesn't have any snapshot as expected.

PROBLEM STARTS HERE ..

After this i tried starting vm and it sort of got into "Not responding stage", i killed the task and restarted my laptop and now when i try to start the vm , it gives me this error message. Refer to attached screen shot.

If i go at the following path as per above screen shot , then i don't see this file existing where as if i remember it correctly there were more than 2 files in this folder... I am guessing that Deleteting snapshot deleteed those files ... now my questions is is my VM screwed up ?? do i have to re-install everything from scratch ??
Also refer to below screen shots if they give some clue ..
Let me know if some sort of logs might help to identify the issue

Regards

Neeraj Vasudeva

any hints .. nobody knows the reply for this one ??

Sorry I have no hint or any helpful advise. That tutorial (3rd party) was using the older version of VirtualBox and snapshots changed since then. That and the *.sav file usually means that the VM was not shutdown but in a saved state, which is more than likely what did you in.

In the future if you are going to use snapshots you really need a good backup routine to be able to recover from.
Instead of merging all of the snapshots you could have just used the export function of VirtualBox and it would have created a single flat file with all of the snapshots merged in for you.

Oops.. So only option left is to rebuild from scratch ??

You can wait for others to reply, but I just thought you should know the inevitable truth.
IMHO From what I see that you have provided I see no way to recover.

thanks a lot for the info... appreciate it, ..i will start to create a new one now .. also can u pass on a link which gives a bit of instruction with screenshot as to how to clone a vm provided a load the latest new virtualbox software.

Neeraj

If you intend to use snapshots, you can not really clone it. You would use the export feature of VirtualBox. In the VirtualBox GUI click on file and then click on export.
You also have the VirtualBox users manual that comes with your software. See Chapter 1.11. Importing and exporting virtual machines.
I use CloneVDI Tool myself but I use it instead of snapshots. When I use snapshots it is for a single moment to test an install and if it goes south I revert and if it goes well I merge.

Thanks a lot for the url for clonevdi. i tried it and it works gr8.

-Neeraj